Category talk:Categories by topic
I propose that this entire hierarchy be removed. Thoughts? --Jesdisciple (talk) 15:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC) :Where's the advantage? You would lose the easy matching with Wikipedia. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 01:48, 15 May 2009 (UTC) ::That question is mutual. :p Why do we want to match Wikipedia? I've never thought of categories as generally useful for outside referencing. I consider them internal, mainly for editor navigation, and think that whatever is most natural for us is best. --Jesdisciple (talk) 02:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC) :::There are distinct advantages in using Wikipedia categories, mostly to do with copying and with saving thought-time; also direct links that can give readers a wider view where your wiki isn't yet fully developed. Before you change or delete an existing category that matches Wikipedia, you should be able to specify a distinct advantage that's superior to the advantages of keeping it. The fact that a couple of users can't see value in a category is certainly not a compelling reason to change. There may be a silent majority who will be unhappy at losing the advantages. How many of "us" should be polled before it is safe to conclude that something is so much more "natural for us" that we should spend a few hours changing it (and everything now and in the future that may link to it)? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:07, 15 May 2009 (UTC) ::But to answer it, rather than just throw it back at you, I see this kind of thing as clutter. Not only could it creep (not that I would expect it to), but I don't think it jives well with Giki - partly because this isn't an encyclopedia, or maybe because it's not nearly as vast as Wikipedia. And of course, for any real need we have which is satisfied by these categories, we could use the Semantic features (I assume). --Jesdisciple (talk) 02:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC) :::In its own field this IS (or can be and should aim to be) an encyclopedia, more vast than the same areas of Wikipedia. I don't know how much we can replace categories with semantic features or exactly how it's done. You don't either. It may be done best by working off existing categories, which could be a good reason for preserving the fairly well thought-out semantic linkages between Wikipedia categories. As for "clutter" and "creep", the ordinary users won't be aware of that, so it won't hurt them. More involved users who don't see a need for particular categories can ignore them. Just leave them for the people who like them and feel more at home in that sort of structure. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:07, 15 May 2009 (UTC) :Giki users are not patient with "design" issues. Typically Giki's users are organizations, citizens, government employees. They want to say something about an issue, track it, share it. They have little patience for technology and organization. Techies have not yet taken to Giki in a large way - they do not seem to feel strongly enough about having a say about the various happenings in the world around them, believe it is only for experts to say, or have not yet discovered Giki! :Categories have been difficult and most users recognize them as keywords, not as a structure. Meta-categories are confusing to the user, more useful for the designer. Getting the correct category on most pages has turned out to be difficult. Any simplification that "contains", simplifies, autocategorizes categories will be useful. :Categories not in use may also be good deletion candidates- they take up too much of the available user cpu time! :The use of with an /autopreload page is one effort to simplify this for the users, however this does not capture multiple categories as it only recognizes the category page from which it was invoked. :--Anupam 06:47, 15 May 2009 (UTC) ::Semantic MediaWiki is not far removed from metacategories. You can leave the metacategories for people who see value in them, confident that the general users will seldom notice them while they are doing their saying, tracking, and sharing. And how much "user cpu time" does a category take up? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:07, 15 May 2009 (UTC) :Semantic MediaWiki is not metacategories- rather it allows each page to have "properties" of various "types". To me meta''categories are categories about categories. But sure create them if they help you as long as they do not scare the users. :-) :With the new category tool it takes some time for category names to show up if there are too many categories. Also more the categories to choose from, the longer it takes to decide which ones are right. a lot of the users deciding and action time (I did not mean the hardware CPU ;-))! A category cloud would be more helpful but currently that extension is not supported on wikia :-( :--Anupam 11:46, 15 May 2009 (UTC) ::I have a lot to reply to... :::"Giki users are not patient with "design" issues. Typically Giki's users are organizations, citizens, government employees. They want to say something about an issue, track it, share it. They have little patience for technology and organization. Techies have not yet taken to Giki in a large way - they do not seem to feel strongly enough about having a say about the various happenings in the world around them, believe it is only for experts to say, or have not yet discovered Giki!"'' ::Heh, maybe that's part of the problem. I'm a programmer. :::"Categories have been difficult and most users recognize them as keywords, not as a structure. Meta-categories are confusing to the user, more useful for the designer. Getting the correct category on most pages has turned out to be difficult. Any simplification that "contains", simplifies, autocategorizes categories will be useful." ::How can categories operate as keywords? Regardless, you might be interested in this. PHP is one of my programming languages, but I can't currently develop anything on my computer (long story); developing online would work if practical. :::"Categories not in use may also be good deletion candidates- they take up too much of the available user cpu time!" ::This would surely be possible with a bot, but I've never managed to try anything in that area. :::":Semantic MediaWiki is not metacategories- rather it allows each page to have "properties" of various "types". To me ''meta''categories are categories about categories. But sure create them if they help you as long as they do not scare the users. :-)" ::I think what Robin means is that Semantic can find "Cars by color" like a metacategory of "Categories by color" would. --Jesdisciple (talk) 13:28, 15 May 2009 (UTC)